Game consoles and systems have progressively become more complex and capable of providing enhanced game play functionality to a user. For example, early conventional game consoles were designed to be used as a stand-alone device, whereby one or more users could interact with a game only if they were physically present at the game console. More advanced conventional game consoles may be used in connection with a network, such as the Internet, to enable game play between multiple users, regardless of where the users may be located. A gaming system may enable the multiple users to interact with each others' game consoles, thereby enabling the multiplayer games to be conducted. To help facilitate such multiplayer games, game consoles may enable users to send messages to other users within a closed loop gaming system.
One problem with such gaming systems is that system messaging systems typically do not provide mechanisms for game data to be transferred from user to user through the system. Users are limited to sending simple text, voice or picture messages with no ability to handle custom game actions or content. In other words, the operation of the messaging system—and the messages transmitted therein—is specified by the system and not the game being played. Such a system is referred to as a “closed loop” system because the system isolates the functions of the messaging system from the applications (i.e., games) that may be running on the system.
As an example, if a user of a conventional gaming system wishes to invite another user to a “guild,” or group of like-minded users of a particular game, the inviting user could send a invitation message to the invitee using a conventional closed loop messaging system. The message may contain instructions for the invitee to follow to be able to join the guild. Typically, the invitee would have to leave the game console (or at least the game environment) to visit a web site associated with the gaming system, and then would have to follow further instructions to join the guild. It can be seen that this is a cumbersome process, as it would be more efficient for the invitee to simply respond to the invitation message, and then the invitee's game console could carry out the steps needed to appropriately respond to the message. Furthermore, it would be even more efficient if the message would inform the invitee's game console of the preferred way to respond to the message.
Unfortunately, a conventional closed loop messaging system provides for simple, predefined (and typically text-based) messages to be sent between game consoles, and does not provide for additional functionality that may be provided by a game. Thus, there is a disconnect between the system-level, closed loop messaging system, and the application-level games that may have game-specific actions that, if they could be sent using the closed loop messaging system, would provide additional features and benefits to the users of the game, game console and gaming system.